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Vinita Silaparasetty

Deep Learning Projects Using

TensorFlow 2
Neural Network Development with Python and
Keras
1st ed.
Vinita Silaparasetty
Bangalore, India

Any source code or other supplementary material referenced by the

author in this book is available to readers on GitHub via the book’s
product page, located at www.​apress.​com/​978-1-4842-5801-9. For
more detailed information, please visit http://​www.​apress.​com/​
source-code.

ISBN 978-1-4842-5801-9 e-ISBN 978-1-4842-5802-6

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-5802-6

Apress Standard
© Vinita Silaparasetty 2020

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the

Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned,
specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations,
recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other
physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval,
electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar
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The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks,

service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the
absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the
relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general
use.

The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the
advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate
at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the
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contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been
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Preface
TensorFlow 2.0 was officially released on September 30th, 2019.
However, the new version is very different than what most users are
familiar with. While programming with TensorFlow 2.0 is much
simpler, most users still prefer to use older versions. This book aims to
help long-time users of TensorFlow adjust to TensorFlow 2.0 and to
help absolute beginners learn TensorFlow 2.0.

Why use TensorFlow?

Here are some advantages to using TensorFlow for your deep learning
projects.
It is open source.
It is reliable (has minimal major bugs).
It is ideal for perceptual and language understanding tasks.
It is capable of running on CPUs and GPUs.
It is easier to debug.
It uses graphs for numeric computations.
It has better scalability, as libraries can be deployed on a gamut of
hardware machines, starting from cellular devices to computers with
complex setups.
It has convenient pipelining, as it is highly parallel and designed to
use various backend software (GPU, ASIC, etc.).
It uses the high-level Keras API.
It has better compatibility.
It uses TensorFlow Extended (TFX) for a full production ML pipeline.
It also supports an ecosystem of powerful add-on libraries and
models to experiment with, including Ragged Tensors, TensorFlow
Probability, Tensor2Tensor, and BERT.
Figure I-1 Comparison of TensorFlow 1.x and TensorFlow 2.0
About the Book Projects
The projects in this book mainly cover image and sound data. They are
designed to be as simple as possible to help you understand how each
neural network works. Consider them to be a skeletal structure for your
own projects. You are encouraged to build on the models in this book
and experiment with them using different datasets. The projects in this
book were designed keeping in mind the latest developments in deep
learning and will be the perfect addition for an impressive data science
portfolio.

System Specifications
The projects in this book require powerful computing resources or a
good cloud platform. You are strongly advised to use a system with the
following minimum requirements :
GPU: Model: 16-bit Memory: 8GB and CUDA Toolkit support
RAM: Memory: 10GB
CPU: PCIe lanes: 8 Core: 4 threads per GPU
SSD: Form Factor: 2.5-inch and SATA interface
PSU: 16.8 watts
Motherboard: PCIe lanes: 8
If you are unable to acquire a system with these requirements, try
using a cloud computing platform, such as one of the following:
BigML
Amazon Web Services
Microsoft Azure
Google Cloud
Alibaba Cloud
Kubernetes

Tips to Get the Most Out of This Book

To get the most value out of the projects in this book, follow these
guidelines:
Create separate environments. To prevent problems, it’s best to
create separate environments for each project. This way you will
have only the libraries necessary for that particular project and there
will not be any clashes.
Save your projects in separate folders. To keep your work
organized and handy for future reference, create separate folders for
each project. You can store the script, datasets, and results that you
have obtained in that folder. Each project in this book provides the
code to set your file path to work directly in the project folder that
you created.
Use data wisely. Ensure that you have enough data to divide into
training and test sets. I suggest that you use 80% of the data for
training and 20% for testing.
Be organized. By creating a folder for your project, you know that all
the data, output files, etc. are available in one place.
Make backups. Make copies of each notebook before experimenting.
This way you have one working copy as a template for future
projects. Then make copies of it and modify it as required.
Plan. Understand the problem statement and create a rough
flowchart of your approach to solving the problem.
Consider your presentation. As a data scientist, your inferences
will be discussed by members of a company who have technical
knowledge as well as those who do not. So be sure that you can
convey your findings in a manner that anyone can understand.
Network. Join online communities where you can ask questions and
help others with solutions to their questions. This is the best way to
learn. I recommend the following:
StackOverflow
Quora
Reddit
StackExchange
CodeProject
Google Groups
CodeRanch
Programmers Heaven
Practice: Need inspiration for more projects? Join online
communities that have hackathons, competitions, etc., to help you
practice and learn. I recommend the following:
Hackerearth
Kaggle
Challengerocket
Angel Hack
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank my father, Mr. S. Mohan Kumar, for his guidance
and valuable input that made this book a great resource for beginners
and seasoned professionals alike.
I would like to thank my mother, Mrs. Agnes Shanthi Mohan, for her
constant support, encouragement, and love.
I would like to thank my younger sister, Ms. Nikita Silaparasetty, for
her valuable feedback and support.
Special thanks to Aaron Black, the senior editor, for accepting my
book proposal and giving me the opportunity to write this book.
Thanks to Jessica Vakili, the coordinating editor, for ensuring that
the process of writing this book was smooth and for clarifying even the
smallest doubts I had as a first-time author.
Thanks to James Markham, the editor, for his guidance on
formatting each chapter as well as his keen eye for detail, which make
this book easy to understand.
Thanks to Mezgani Ali, the technical reviewer, for ensuring that the
source code is well formatted.
Finally, I would like to thank the awesome team at Apress, for their
effort in making this book possible.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1:​Getting Started:​Installation and Troubleshooting
Installing Python 3
Method 1:​Direct Installation from the Official Python
Website
Troubleshooting Tips
Method 2:​Using Anaconda
Troubleshooting Tips
Installing Jupyter Notebook
Dependencies
Method 1:​Using the PIP Installation Package
Troubleshooting Tips
Method 2:​Using Anaconda
Troubleshooting Tips
Installing TensorFlow 2.​0
Dependencies
Method 1:​Using the PIP Installation Package
Troubleshooting Tips
Method 2:​Using Anaconda
Troubleshooting Tips
Installing Keras
Dependencies
Using the PIP Installation Package
Troubleshooting Tips
Installing Python Libraries
Installing NumPy
 Installing SciPy
Installing Matplotlib
Installing Pandas
Installing Scikit-Learn
Summary
Chapter 2:​Perceptrons
Biological Neurons
Artificial Neurons
Perceptrons
Perceptron Learning Rule
Types of Activation Functions
The Sigmoid Activation Function
The ReLU Function
The Softmax Function
Perceptrons in Action
Stage 1:​Forward Propagation of Inputs
Stage 2:​Calculation of the Net Input
Stage 3:​Activation Function
Stage 4:​Backward Propagation
Project Description
Important Terminology
Required Libraries
Procedure
Step 1.​Import Libraries
Step 2.​Declare Parameters
Step 3.​Declare the Weights and Bias
 Step 4.​Define the Perceptron Function
Step 5.​Define the Loss Function and Optimizer
Step 6.​Read in the Data
Step 7.​Visualization of Labels
Step 8.​Prepare Inputs
Step 9.​Initialize Variables
Step 10.​Train the Model
Step 11.​New Values for Weights and Bias
Step 12.​View the Final Loss
Step 13.​Predicting Using the Trained Model
Step 14.​Evaluate the Model
Summary
Chapter 3:​Neural Networks
What Is a Neural Network?​
Neural Network Components
Advantages of Neural Networks
Disadvantages of a Neural Networks
How a Neural Network Works
Forward Propagation
Backward Propagation
Types of Neural Networks
Feedforward Neural Network
Convolutional Neural Networks
Recurrent Neural Network (RNN)
Radial Basis Function Neural Network (RBNN)
Project Description
 Flattening Data
About the Dataset
Required Libraries
Neural Network Architecture
Procedure
Summary
References
Chapter 4:​Sentiment Analysis
LSTM Review
How an LSTM Works
Layers in an LSTM
Project Description
About the Dataset
Understanding Sentiment Analysis
Required Libraries
LSTM Architecture
Procedure
Step 1.​Import Libraries
Step 2.​Load the Data
Step 3.​Prepare the Data
Step 4.​Clean the Data
Step 5.​Structure the Model
Step 6.​Compile the Model
Step 7.​Train the Model
Step 8.​Save the Model (Optional)
Step 9.​Import the Pretrained Model (Optional)
 Further Tests
Troubleshooting
Summary
References
Further Reading
Chapter 5:​Music Generation
GRU Overview
How a GRU Works
GRU Stages
GRU Layers
Comparing GRU and LSTM
Project Description
About the Dataset
Important Terminology and Concepts
Required Libraries
Installation Instructions
Using PIP
Using Windows
Using macOS
Using Linux
Installation Troubleshooting
GRU Architecture
Procedure
Step 1.​Import Libraries
Step 2.​Load the Data
Step 3.​Feature Extraction
 Step 4.​Exploratory Data Analysis (EDA)
Step 5.​Data Preparation (Input)
Step 6.​Structure the Model
Step 7.​Train the Model
Step 8.​Prediction
Step 9.​Data Preparation (Offset)
Step 10.​Store the Output as a MIDI File
Further Tests
Troubleshooting
Summary
References
Resources
Further Reading
Chapter 6:​Image Colorization
Human Vision Review
Computer Vision Review
How a CNN Works
Input Layer
Convolution Layer:​The Kernel
Upsampling Layer
DepthwiseConv2D
Pooling Layer
Fully Connected Layer
Project Description
About the Dataset
Important Terminology
 Required Libraries
Installation Instructions
CNN+VGG-16 Architecture
Procedure
Step 1.​Import the Libraries
Step 2.​Convert the Images to Grayscale
Step 3.​Load the Data
Step 4.​Structure the Model
Step 5.​Set the Model Parameters
Step 6.​Data Preparation
Step 7.​Train the Model
Step 8.​Obtain Predictions
Step 9.​View the Results
Troubleshooting
Further Tests
Summary
References
Further Reading
Chapter 7:​Image Deblurring
What Is a GAN?​
Types of GANs
How a GAN Works
The Generative Model
Process Within the Generator
The Discriminator Model
Process Within the Discriminator
 Project Description
About the Dataset
Important Terminology and Concepts
GAN Architecture
Required Libraries
GAN Architecture
Generator
Discriminator
Procedure
Step 1.​Import the Libraries
Step 2.​Dataset Preparation
Step 3.​Exploratory Data Analysis
Step 4.​Structure the Model
Step 5.​Input Preparation
Step 6.​View the Images
Step 7.​Save Results
Troubleshooting
Further Tests
Summary
References
Further Reading
Chapter 8:​Image Manipulation
Project Description
Important Terminology and Concepts
Copy-Move Forgeries
About the Dataset
 Required Libraries
Troubleshooting
CNN Architecture
Procedure
Step 1.​Import the Libraries
Step 2.​Preparing the Dataset
Step 3.​Structure the Model
Step 4.​Train the Model
Step 5.​Test the Model
Step 6.​Check the Results
Further Tests
Summary
References
Further Reading
Chapter 9:​Neural Network Collection
Neural Network Zoo Primer
Neural Networks
Recurrent Neural Networks (RNNs)
Multiplicative LSTM
ANNs with Attention
Transformers
Autoencoder
Variational Autoencoders
Denoising Autoencoders
Recurrent Autoencoders
Sparse Autoencoders
 Stacked Autoencoders
Convolutional Autoencoders
Stacked Denoising Autoencoders
Contractive Autoencoders
Markov Chains
Hopfield Networks
Bidirectional Associative Memory
Boltzmann Machines
Restricted Boltzmann Machines
Deep Belief Networks
Deconvolutional Networks
Deep Convolutional Inverse Graphics Networks
Liquid State Machines
Echo State Networks (ESNs)
Deep Residual Network (ResNet)
ResNeXt
Neural Turing Machines
Capsule Networks
LeNet-5
AlexNet
GoogLeNet
Xception
Optimizers
Stochastic Gradient Descent
RMSProp
AdaGrad
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
The Project Gutenberg eBook of The frantic master
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States
and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no
restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the
United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where
you are located before using this eBook.

Title: The frantic master

Author: Mrs. Douglas Pulleyne

Release date: March 27, 2024 [eBook #73273]

Language: English

Original publication: London: Chapman and Hall Ld, 1927

Credits: Al Haines

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FRANTIC

MASTER ***
 THE
FRANTIC MASTER

BY

DOUGLAS PULLEYNE
AUTHOR OF "SPRING SORREL"

"And in particular I may mention Sophocles the poet, who

was once asked in my presence, 'How do you feel about
love, Sophocles? Are you still capable of it?' To which he
replied, 'Hush, if you please; to my great delight I have
escaped from it, and feel as if I had escaped from a frantic
and savage master.'"

The Republic of Plato.

CHAPMAN
AND HALL LD.
 LONDON : MCMXXVII

AUTHOR'S NOTE

The incident, in essentials true, of the soldiers in the railway carriage,

overheard by "Cyprian," is the seed from which this book grew. To explain
his attitude, it is, therefore, included with acknowledgments to that Editor of
the "PIONEER" who first recorded it for me. "Shoan and the Mermaid" is
also true, as an example of a tale told to the Nicobarese by a traveller, and
retold by them, and may be found in Sir Richard Temple's Census Report,
preserved to the best of my belief in the Offices of the Chief Commissioner
in the Andamans.

I make no apologies to my old friends, Scarecrow, Friend-of-England

and others for describing them under their own names, feeling sure that
they would expect no evil magic to come of it. To the workers of the Mission
at Car Nicobar, one of whom it is well-known spent twelve years in the
islands translating the Prayer Book into Nicobarese, I would say that little
Jellybrand is only the portrait of a type I have met—of which is the
Kingdom of Heaven, and which neither looks for nor will find recognition
on earth for much simple heroism.

A somewhat delightful brother of mine may be inclined to suspect a

portrait in "Peter." Let me assure him that I have known many Peters.

Printed in Great Britain

by Burleigh Ltd., at THE BURLEIGH PRESS, Bristol
 WRITTEN FOR
A SOLDIER, A DOCTOR
AND
A SCIENTIST

YOU THREE,

This fulfilled promise, possibly, by now, nearly forgotten by you, will

find the four of us in different countries, or even different continents; but
find you it will, to recall to your minds a memory of five long weeks,
during which we formed a perfect square; when, alike under the Colombo
palms or the hot rocks of Aden, among the lights of Port Said or in the
shadow of Gibraltar, the discussion, ever and again, would veer round to
that which the fool hath said in his heart.

People on this earth evolve and alter; it is to you, as I knew you then,
that this is addressed. Try to put back the clock and think as you thought
then.

I have still in your neat hand-writing, "C"—I wonder whether your

prescriptions are as clear to read?—the account of your conversion to that
Spiritualistic Theosophy which used to make "L.B." impatient. I inserted
the page in the first book I wrote for you all, but which, to the agent's
surprise, I suddenly withdrew, doubting lest I was still too near the Three of
you and those endless conversations to have made my characters
impersonal enough and, also, doubting the fairness of putting into cold print
anything which had been given me in the special circumstances of our
friendship.

So Cyprian and Ferlie come late on the scene to show you by their
problem much that I have left unsaid (even to you, "L.B.") during the star-
spangled nights in tropical waters and, afterwards, in the grey streets of
Westminster and those greyer and darker streets elsewhere, down which the
Other Half live and the Men in Black go to and fro.
 Let me say now, since it was hardly permitted for me to tell you then,
that what you did was one of the bravest things I have ever known a man
do. This, in case you have, in retrospection, doubted and regretted the
impulse as abnormal or unbalanced.

Some travellers across my horizon last winter recognized your

photograph, and I gathered from them that you are now on the way to be
reckoned among the Senior and the Great.

To you, "C," I have always wished to confess, in acknowledgment of

your wisdom as physician and psychologist, that your warning nearly came
true and, two years ago, I thought a great deal about it, and you, in hospital.

And of you, "L.L.": I have often wondered whether you found your
Golden Girl according to Le Gallienne? Well, I owe much to the passing of
our ships: hence this dedication.

I have only the one wish for you all Three, but particularly will "L.B."
understand it: it is, that to the end of the voyage you may be able to trust the
Pilot you have chosen.

Under a signature only part familiar to you,

Yours,
H. E. DOUGLAS-PULLEYNE

THE FRANTIC MASTER

CHAPTER I
 When a man has been turned down by the Only Girl (although she isn't,
and never was) and, subsequently, finds her present in the same batch of
dinner-guests as himself, it is hardly to be expected that he will prove the
life and soul of the party.

But, thought Mrs. Carmichael, vexed with herself for a blundering

hostess who ought to have known, and still more vexed with Cyprian Sterne
for not having waited until after the 17th to try his luck with Muriel, there
was no need for him to gloom at his soup as if he were gauging its depths
for a suicidal dive and there was no need for him to have waved aside the
champagne. Champagne was clearly indicated on the occasion, medicinally,
if not (as she felt inclined to insist, herself, despite appearances) in
felicitation.

Cyprian always showed himself so ridiculously sensitive. And Muriel

looked so ... adamant. Yes, that was the word; hard and bright like a crystal
prism you could not see through clearly, however often the attractive
suggestion of buried rainbows within might tempt you to hold it close to
your eyes. With the closeness even the rainbows became blurred.

"An incarnation of the three B's which constitute the Perfect Woman,"
said her men-admirers.

Brain, Beauty and Breeding. All by heredity. No wonder she behaved as

if she had the right to wealth also, of a standard not to be extracted from the
scholarly pockets of Cyprian and his like.

Had he a like? Mrs. Carmichael doubted. She wondered what mislaid

edition of Persian verse or Grecian ethics was, even now, spoiling the
symmetry of his evening coat. A little bowed, the shoulders, even when he
stood upright. The scrutiny of the very blue eyes a little fixed when he
addressed you with that air of seeing behind things which betrays the short-
sighted. Interesting, the long dreamy face, but hardly handsome. And his
acknowledged cleverness did not flash in your face like Muriel's, so that,
waiving her awareness of his Double Firsts at Oxford and all that, she had
been heard to tick him off as "a dry old stick." Encouraging his transparent
admiration the while. Minx!
 One had wished he would hurry up and propose and get the inevitable
yearnings for a premature grave over and then forget. And now he had
completed the first item on that programme—most inconsiderately before
the 17th—and the yearnings were upon him and he was ruining his end of
the dinner-party.

Muriel sat opposite him and it was comprehensible that he should not
want to look at her and, therefore, incomprehensible why he insisted on
trying to.

As usual, she was worth looking at. Those very fair women, particularly
when dressed in soft watery greens, recalled old legends of sirens who
floated gold hair about their insinuating bodies, luring mankind by music
and provocative laughter to its destruction despite the warning, eternally
present, of white bones on the sand.

A pity that Cyprian's mental vision was as myopic as his physical when
it came to those bones.

Mrs. Carmichael could see them quite clearly herself: here, the skull of
Major Ames (a nice little man, and of course, that hunting tragedy had
proved an accident, although at the time They said...) there, the femur,
rather nobbly, of Maurice Waring who had parted, not exactly with his life,
to be sure, but certainly with his wife since sighting the siren's shining head.
But those two had never got on anyhow, and if, eventually, he managed the
divorce ... how much more nearly would he and Muriel prove birds of a
feather than she and poor Cyprian with his good old-fashioned conviction
that this modern laxity in matrimonial matters was a national menace.
Refreshing, to find a man like Cyprian, even though as he was not safely
religious one was inclined to wonder, when it came to personal influence,
would Muriel...? Mrs. Carmichael's subconscious musings (for consciously
she was smiling eager attention to ex-Colonel Maddock's—he was now, by
virtue of a dead American wife, by way of being a millionaire, which is far
better—account of his last yachting cruise, and praying Providence for the
strength and the strategy to resist suggestions that she and Robin should
join him next time) were shattered by the despairing howl of what sounded
like a soul in torment. Only, it emanated from regions too nearly at the top
of the house to be described as "nether."
 "It's that child again," remarked Robin accusingly down the long table,
interrupted in an intense discussion with Miss Mabel Clement, the
playwright: "I have always said we would suffer for it if you were so weak
with her in the beginning."

"To any child born in the East, English nursery-life is impossibly

terrifying," and Mrs. Carmichael apologetically sought the support of her
guests. "Since Peter went to school she has had to sleep alone. It's all very
well for Robin to call me weak but I can't believe it is good for a child's
nerves to..."

Another wail crescendoed to the uttermost heights of horror and died

away.

"That noise does not improve mine," Robin Carmichael answered dryly:
"What is the nurse thinking of?"

"It's her evening out."

And, inwardly, his wife sighed for their return to Burma where servants
did not have evenings out, and ... and people were too enslaved to official
etiquette to show their feelings at dinner-parties.

A chair grated harshly back, rumpling the rug on the polished parquet
floor.

"Let me go up to her for a moment," said Cyprian, "I undertook to visit

the nursery when I arrived but was told she had gone to sleep."

Well, if it would take his mind off himself and his stricken face from the
vicinity of the Hon. Mrs. Porter, who was beginning to wear a worried look.
Mrs. Carmichael knew that Robin would say that it was all wrong, of
course, in the morning, but she could hardly let Ferlie howl throughout
dinner and, if the parlour-maid went up, Rose would have to hand round the
fish single-handed and she was under notice to go, and therefore, under no
obligation to behave. In Burma there had always been someone to sit with
Ferlie if she woke.
 "Tell her to go to sleep at once then," and Ferlie's mother favoured
Cyprian with an indulgent smile. His fondness for the child was really too
quaint. In the circumstances, pathetic.

The incident might well arouse Muriel's better nature ... but no, not
quite.

It would, in all likelihood, encourage her worse one, since she was no
character in a book written with a mission behind it. Already her clear eyes
were glinting humorously and something she remarked to Captain Wright,
in an undertone, had just made that young gentleman, who never at any
time required much encouragement to giggle, choke violently into his
napkin. Why couldn't Cyprian realize that he didn't in the least want Muriel,
but a Womanly Woman of Yesterday?

* * * * * *

Meanwhile, Cyprian, incapable of perceiving his desire for any woman,

save one who was the figment of his own imagination, clothed in a blurred
semblance to Muriel Vane, mounted the stairs to an airy room with a
sloping roof which lent queer profundities to the dancing shadows born of
Ferlie's night-light. Found Ferlie sitting up among the pillows with the sheet
over her head and the fear of the devil in her soul. Ferlie, at seven, was
afraid of darkness, being accidentally buried alive, and wolves. Not lions
and tigers: only wolves. This, since she had never seen a wolf; though
tigers, looking loose and heavy, had been marched across her horizon more
than once by excitedly shouting coolies, when everyone was in holiday
camp and Mr. Carmichael had been out shooting. They inspired sympathy
rather than respect in that condition, and lions, naturally, slipped into the
same category of beasts one's father could, if he so desired, bring home on
poles and transform into carpets for the bungalow. Wolves were different.
She had a book concerning their activities in a land called Siberia. They
chased people there for miles and miles over stuff like ground-rice pudding,
commonly known as "snow," and even ate the sleigh. England, in which she
now found herself, might very easily resemble Siberia in this particular: it
was cold also, and snow came with cold. The birth of the being-buried-alive
fear dated from a conversation overheard between her parents anent the
accuracy of the Bible with regard to the reappearance from the grave of
one, Lazarus.

Her father was a thoughtful sceptic, but Ferlie did not find him out for
many years. Her mother's views were founded on the Book of Common
Prayer and the story, "There, but for the Grace of God ..." though she was
divided in her mind whether Bunyan had invented the one and Gladstone
said the other, or vice versa. Her own father, a bishop, and a busy one, had
rather taken her catechism for granted when he confirmed her, on the
assumption that a daughter educated in a godly ecclesiastical household and
never exposed to the youthful heresies of a boarding-school must
necessarily be in a perpetual state of knowledgeable grace. And he had
passed on his gaiters as a matter of course before retiring to her elder
brother.

Her husband explained away miracles by Euclidean methods which

struck terror to her orthodox heart.

"A possible and recorded case of suspended animation," had been his
verdict on Lazarus. "Occurs every day. Read Hudson's Psychic
Phenomena." Mrs. Carmichael had no intention of doing any such thing.

"There are countless instances of people being buried alive," continued

Mr. Carmichael. And, after racking his brains for two, cited them in clear
convincing tones. Ferlie had scooped the last grains of melting sugar out of
an empty cocoa-cup and thoughtfully left the room. Mrs. Carmichael
vaguely hoped that God was not listening to the conversation and then
forgot all about it. So did Robin. Ferlie remembered. Always at night in this
England, deprived of her patiently crooning Burmese nurse, she
remembered. The wigwam of sheets and blankets was to shut out Fear.

She knew the footsteps on the stairs which were coming to the rescue
now; though he was not, in his customary accomplished fashion, taking two
steps at a time.

"Is that you, Cyprian?"

"Yes, old lady."

 "I thought it might be Satan."

"Why Satan?"

She came out of her fastness with a shudder.

"They call him the Prince of Darkness, you know. This is the witching
hour when I think he probberly might..."

"Might what?" Vainly he tried to sort the tumbled bed-clothes. Her

Viyella night-dress was dripping wet.

"Might take an' bury me in the Tomb," said Ferlie in a hoarse whisper.
Cyprian tried to make his laugh aggressively reassuring.

"Who on earth suggested such nonsense to you?"

"It can't be nonsense if it's in the Bible. An' in a book by a man named
Hudson. He makes the kitchen soap 'cos Cook told me so when I asked. He
must be clever for every person to buy his soap. An' he buried Lazarus."

It was beyond Cyprian's power to disentangle her from this web. The
servants must have been frightening the child. It was common knowledge
that the best of nurses were often grossly imaginative.

He stroked the russet mop of fluff resting against his shoulder and
resorted to practical conversation. Except that it concerned her own private
affairs and was therefore connected with Teddy-bears, the duck-pond in the
park, the little-girl-next-door, and other important personages of summers
six to ten, it was conducted as gravely as though they were of an age.

Cyprian did not really understand anything about talking down to a

child's level and that was why Ferlie loved him. She detected the simple
sincerity behind his sometimes complicated language and when he used
words beyond her ken it was seldom she failed to grasp the drift.

Neither the child nor the man realized that each being sensitive to a
fault, they affected one another atmospherically and their true conversation
existed in emotions experienced side by side rather than in sentences
interchanged. Thus, to-night, her quick intuition arrived at the cause of that
veiled look in his eyes.

"Are you going to be married to that Vane girl?" she enquired, betraying
instantaneously to Cyprian that there were those who disapproved of his
matrimonial projects.

He answered, "No," quietly, after an instant's pause.

"Why not?" asked Ferlie suspiciously. "Nurse says she's a hussy."

"No one should have said such a thing to you."

"It wasn't to me: it was to Rose. Rose used to live in her house, an'..."

"It doesn't matter what either Rose or Nurse says," said Cyprian. "But
who told you about my marrying anyone, Ferlie?"

"I think that was just in my head," struggling to remember where the
impression had first indented itself upon her responsive brain. "Why aren't
you...?"

He saw there was no help for it and replied patiently, "She does not
want to marry me; that's all."

"Then she's a dam fool," said Ferlie with complete conviction. He was
genuinely shocked.

"You must never say that of anyone, dear, even if you don't like them."

"Dad says it of mostly all peoples, whether he likes them or not."

"That's different."

"How?"

"He's grown-up."

"How can grown-ups...?"

 "And he's a man," Cyprian went on, desperately aware that he was not
doing very well. "Ladies don't use such words."

Then Ferlie played her trump card. "Miss Vane does," she said coldly.

Cyprian preserved a masterly silence. Good gracious! she was modern

enough, of course. Muriel! There was music in her name ... and in her throat
when she sang ... and in the delicate hands moving over the keys of the
grand piano downstairs; for she always played to them after dinner in the
evenings. She had the whitest throat he had ever seen and the most beautiful
hands.

"Why do people always want to marry other people?" insisted his

companion, alive to mysteries unsolved and femininely peevish in
consequence. Cyprian considered this himself before attempting to clear it
up.

"I suppose they grow lonely living just for themselves," he said at last.

"I don't believe that there girl would make loneliness feel better,"
declared Ferlie.

"You don't understand, dear." She cuddled his sleeve, ecstatically

sympathetic with that which she did understand, his tone of voice.

"Are you so sorry you can't get married, Cyprian? Why not make Miss
Cartwright marry you astead? She'd do it, I daresay, 'f I begged her for my
sake. She says she'd do most things for me, only not run upstairs backwards
at her timerlife. An' she cooks lovely choclick fudge. Miss Vane can't, I'm
sure. You ask her."

"I think you are probably right about that."

"Then we've settled it," much relieved. "I wouldn't go marrying anyone
myself 'less they had a hand for fudge. I'll tell Miss Cartwright to-morrow
that you want to get married to her this directly immejantly, an' I was to ask
her not to say 'No' like Miss Vane."
 "Good God!" exclaimed Cyprian rousing himself. "I beg your pardon—
I mean—you must never say that, Ferlie. But neither must you say anything
to Miss Cartwright. Promise! It's just—you see, this must be a dead secret
between you and me, about Miss Vane and all." Happy thought! He might
trust Ferlie to the stake with their numerous unique secrets.

"But, Cyprian, why..."

"Dear, my dear," said the man, speaking more to the beauty of her
upturned face than to the child, "when you want to marry it is only the one
person who counts. The one person with all her faults and weaknesses—
because those, too, are part of her. Chocolate fudge (and there are more
kinds of that than you know) doesn't come into it with the averagely decent
man. You just love the person or you don't. You will understand all about it
some day, when you are older."

The comforting arms which stole round his neck might have understood
all about it now.

"Do you really love that Miss Vane?"

"Heaven help me, I do!"

"Can't you stop if you want to?"

"Apparently not; but one doesn't want to. That's the ridiculous part ...
the thing grips you, like invisible iron hands, to drag you along a road of
withered flowers, forcing you to breathe the rot of that Dead Sea fruit which
fills the air with the bitter fumes of jealousy and passion.... Fruit?"

"Cyprian, didn't you not bring me up a cryssalized apricot?"

He nearly chuckled as he stumbled back along his "withered paths" to

Reality.

"Sorry, Little Thing. I forgot. You shall have a whole box to-morrow."

"I shan't get a moment's peace to eat them unless we have it as a secret,"
she suggested wheedlingly.
 "Oh!" he cried, delightedly hugging her, "You'll be a woman so much
too soon."

"Mother says..." she began dreamily, and that reminded him.

"She said I was to tell you to go to sleep at once."

"Such a silly sort of thing to say to a child!" said Ferlie, palpably

quoting, "Sleep is like that marrying feeling of yours: it can't be made to go
or stop ... Cyprian..."

"Well!"

"You did a wriggle. You aren't goin' away."

"Not if you'll shut your eyes," he undertook feebly. "But, you know,
there is really nothing to be afraid of, Ferlie, whether I am here or not."

She knew better. "And that's another thing you can't let go nor stop,
neither," she told him.

Considering it, with her head growing heavier every moment against his
shoulder, Cyprian came to the conclusion that she was right. The darkness
deepened about them as someone shut the door between hall and stairs.

"Cyprian."

"Dear."

"Whoever you get married to, you will always like me best, won't you?"

"Why, of course," said Cyprian. "Of course..."

Her breathing became contentedly regular.

* * * * * *

Downstairs, Muriel Vane had been very clever at his expense.

 More like a siren than ever, perched behind the looming rock of the
grand piano, a few gleaming threads of escaping hair picked out against the
background of polished wood, while, every now and again, her fingers
rippled the accompanying chords of some haunting French song.

She usually sang in French.

"To shock folk in legitimate ignorance," she informed Captain Wright,

leaning over her with every symptom of shortly shedding his bones in the
vicinity.

"Dear Muriel!" placidly reproved Mrs. Carmichael. She did not

understand sung French, or for that matter, any but the brand which, by dint
of firm repetition, brings you your hot water and "Du thé—pas chocolat.
Pas!" in Parisian hotels at eight a.m.

Muriel's sort of French was of little use to anyone but foreigners, and
there were so seldom foreigners present.

"Sing 'Sanson et Dalila'," begged the Hon. Mrs. Porter, feeling surer of
her ground when dealing with passion in opera, where, however unbridled,
it remained respectably unconvincing to the mind of the British matron.

"I was saving that till Cyprian Sterne had finished rocking the cradle
upstairs," said Muriel. "It happens, quite unsuitably, to be his favourite
song, and the hand that rocks the cradle rules the girls—in that its action
suggests a future peacefully free from that domestic duty for them."

"I have sent up two messages," Mrs. Carmichael anticipated her

husband plaintively, "but he replied that he was not feeling very well to-
night and would join us after dinner."

"I have repeatedly said——" began Mr. Carmichael, but was firmly
interrupted: "I know you have, dear, but if half an hour with Ferlie amuses
him, I think it would be better to leave him alone to-night." She looked
across, meaningly, at Muriel and closed her lips. Tact was a thing nobody
seemed able to acquire who had not been born with it.
 Muriel made a little grimace and burst suddenly into a very simple
melody:

"J'ai pris un bluet Fluet

Enclos parmi l'herbe
Et quelqu'un m'a dit; Mon Dieu!
Il n'est pas de bleu plus bleu
Que ce bleu superbe.
Moi, qui sais ce que je sais—
J'ai souri sans lui rien dire
Car à tes yeux je pensais—
Sans rien dire, sans rien dire."

The notes quickened with heartless mirth, and the pure voice rang out
again:

"Au rosiers fleuris j'ai pris."

Mrs. Carmichael, ruminating that the piano, at any rate, kept Muriel out
of mischief, here clutched thankfully, decided that the song concerned
roses, and framed an intelligent appreciation, on that hypothesis, against its
finish.

Cyprian walked into the room as the last verse, reckless with desire, was
sweetening the air:

"J'ai pris un pavé, trouvé

Au fond de cratère
Et quelqu'un m'a dit, Mon Dieu!
Plus dur pavé ne se peut
Trouver dans la terre.
Moi, qui sais ce que je sais—
J'ai pleuré sans lui rien dire,
 Car à ton cœur je pensais—
Sans rien dire... Sans rien dire...."

"I always like songs about flowers, don't you?" queried their hostess of
the world.

And "Here you are at last," her husband remarked to Cyprian before
Muriel's curving lips could make the most of that joke; "you really should
not spoil Ferlie."

"She is such a highly-strung child," the Hon. Mrs. Porter volunteered

languidly, waving a gold-tipped ostrich feather, though, had she stopped to
consider the matter, she would have discovered that she was cold in her
chair near the door.

"Never yet," said Colonel Maddock, who adopted the criticizing

privileges of an unofficial uncle in the house, "have I met the fortunate
mother whose children were not exceptionally highly-strung. What does the
term mean exactly?"

"That they need a disciplined existence," said Mr. Carmichael. "All

these modern methods of making things easy for children are wrong. Life is
not easy. They must be fitted to overcome difficulties."

"Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control!" mocked Muriel, with

accusing eyes on Captain Wright who was trying to press her hand behind
the music-stand. "I cannot bear a man, particularly, without self-control; and
the child is father to the man—in Ferlie's case."

Cyprian dejectedly decided that he had let himself go, rather, at the
scene of the proposal. She had looked so infinitely desirable.

"Ferlie was frightened," he said, rather lamely. "I think, perhaps, the
servants——"
 "There!" cried Mrs. Carmichael. "What did you tell Robin about
English servants?"

"You should discipline her out of being frightened," declared Muriel.

"Why make it easy for a child to go to sleep with night-lights and such
nonsense? Think of all the insomnia she will have to battle against in future
years. Let her learn to overcome——"

Mr. Carmichael was looking so stiff that his wife intervened.

"Dear Muriel! You do talk such nonsense. Robin did not mean that."

"No?" Muriel turned limpid eyes on Cyprian. "And what line did you
take with her?"

"We talked a little," he said, blinking quickly at the carpet, "and

presently she fell asleep. I must thank her for affording me the excuse to get
rid of a slight headache."

"I thought you were not yourself at dinner," said Mrs. Porter forgivingly.
"You are fond of children?"

"No," said Cyprian, somewhat bluntly. He was not fond of children.

"Really! Ferlie is so devoted to you."

"She is about the first child I have ever addressed, and will probably be
the last."

"If she were a normal specimen, the first time you addressed her would
have been the last," said Muriel, "I have heard you doing it. I am glad when
you are with me you talk down to my level, Cyprian. I have not Ferlie's
pristine trust in dictionarial expressions. I should imagine that you were
swearing at me half the time."

"I think he talks very good English," said Mrs. Carmichael kindly. "We
none of us speak enough like books these days."
 Mabel Clement who, during the greater part of the evening had been
scrutinizing Muriel and Captain Wright with a view to working them into
her new satire, "The Man-Eater," came out of a frowning wilderness of
thought, wherein the others had completely forgotten her, to say that the
ideal language, as yet unborn, should consist merely of a riot of sound,
expressing the emotion it was required to convey.

"Our spelling is execrable, our grammar clumsy, and the elegant diction
of the one-time popular novelist of the Jane Austen calibre was affected in
the extreme. Life is too short for these chains of superfluous sentences, and
far too short for us to master all the tongues of Babel before we can test the
mentality of other nations. It should be possible to invent a tongue, common
to all, conveying to the brain, by sound, what it is desired to express."

"Let's begin to invent it now," Muriel suggested rapturously: "Colonel

Maddock! Whu-u! Why! Whu-u-u! Isn't my meaning perfectly clear?" She
tilted her flower-face up to his, drawing in her breath in a series of staccato
jerks.

The Colonel grinned down amiably as he inhaled the fragrance of a

delicate hair-wash.

"I know!" Captain Wright bawled triumphantly from his corner: "she
wants a drink!"

In the storm of merriment which followed, Mabel Clement smiling

resignedly, retired again into the fastness of her soul, while Cyprian crossed
the room to a tray containing, Eastern fashion, several long bottles and a
syphon.

While the party were breaking up in a fizzling glitter of glasses, Mrs.

Carmichael drew close and gently touched his sleeve. Then and there the
memories were blotted out of occasions when he had wondered how a
clever man like Carmichael stood her! Madonna-sweet, her smile at that
moment.

"Wait a bit after the others leave," she said in an undertone; "Robin and
I have been wondering about your plans. And I want to consult you over
Ferlie's school."

The note on which the last word was spoken broke in two. When she
and her husband returned to Burma they would be minus encumbrances.
Subtly conveying her own need of a little sympathy in the only idiom she
knew, Mrs. Carmichael remained unaware that in so doing she represented
to Cyprian the beauty of the Essentially Feminine.

She kissed Muriel "Good night," reflecting cattily how boring women's
kisses must seem to her after ... and staved off the Colonel's last broad
approach to the forthcoming pleasure-cruise in the yacht.

"Good night, Mrs. Porter."

"Good night, dear. Such a pleasant... Yes, thank you, that is my vanity
bag, though at my time of life you may well be wondering ... and Muriel
with a Vinolia complexion has no business to own such a thing."

"Robin, will you... Ah! Here is the parlour-maid...."

A low-murmured plea from Captain Wright, whose arms encircled

Muriel's cloak.... The diamond glitter of answering eyes....

Good night.... Good-night.

CHAPTER II

"Seems almost a pity," said Mr. Carmichael.

His wife looked her grey-eyed agreement.

"The one post promises security for life, a fixed salary...."

"And is so eminently your line, Cyprian."

 "At the moment," said Cyprian, "a secure haven and a tranquil time to
brood upon my good fortune in it are the last attractions the world can offer
me. I feel restless. I know I am probably being a fool but, since my mother
died, there is nothing that need prevent me from being a fool if I so desire."

Mrs. Carmichael had a feeling that any young man who rounded off his
sentence with, "if I so desire" at this stage of his career, was intended by
Heaven for a University donship and not the vicissitudes of a miner's
existence. She was quite right.

"The Company which has offered you the post of Secretarial Manager
and What-Not of its—er—machinations," went on Mr. Carmichael, "will, in
all likelihood, burst before the year's end and leave you stranded. The
Burmese mines are overdone and I hardly believe in this new discovery and
your avaricious expectations. What is promised? Rubies?"

"I got such a pretty aquamarine straight from the Mogok mines once,"
murmured his wife, "through a friend who ..."

"You won't find any rubies, ten to one," warned Robin.

"But I may find something else again which is of even more importance
to me," said Cyprian.

Neither of his companions asked what that was. He went on slowly:

"Some force outside myself seems to be urging me away from England for
the present. I fear the facetious would describe me as a quitter, but, for
certain natures, it is always safest to quit ... temptations. I have never dared
to do anything else myself, and a superficial peace at Oxford just now
would multiply mine unbelievably, though I am sensible of the honour done
me by their offer of the appointment."

"You are only twenty-eight, are you not?"

"Yes. For a humble tutor and lecturer to get such a chance..."

"Free house and garden," chirped Mrs. Carmichael, seeing womanly

visions and dreaming womanly dreams, "and with prospects of becoming a
master in time. What a pity..."

She knew, alas, that Muriel would refuse to be dazzled.

"Well, since you seem to have made up your mind to throw up a good
thing for a doubtful one"—Mr. Carmichael never wasted time on vain
regrets—"I agree that your science and geological knowledge will be
invaluable to your employers and I had better tell you what I have seen of
the district."

The talk drifted into generalities, and Mrs. Carmichael began to price
Ferlie's winter coat and remind herself to impress it upon the matron at
Peter's school that Peter was really an Exceptional Boy. She believed in a
private appeal to the only woman in an establishment full of unimaginative
men. Pictured the red-roofed bungalow in Rangoon without the children's
toys annoying her husband in the verandah. Remembered all the other
Colonial mothers and wondered why that made the pain worse instead of
better. Rejoiced that she had, at least, got the better of Robin in the matter
of Ferlie's education. None of your hard modern schools, over-developing
brain and body at the expense of femininity. Reaction must set in soon on
this count, and Muriel Vane was nothing if not a warning. There could come
a revival of the old-fashioned home-school, where it was so fortunate that
the kind Miss Maynes had welcomed the thought of having Peter for the
holidays.

They could not have agreed to take just any boy, they had told her—in
fact none had, up to date, been offered them—but, in the circumstances,
"Why, it is really our duty, dear Mrs. Carmichael."

Yes, Lady Vigor's daughter had always remained with them and,
naturally, they had taken her to the seaside. How impossible, thought
Ferlie's mother, to have entrusted Ferlie or Peter to Aunt Brillianna.

Brillianna Trefusis, a maternal aunt of Robin's, who was, nevertheless,

not more than five years his senior, was an eccentric lady who travelled a
great deal, spoke boldly and wore a disconcerting air suggesting that life
amused her. And she did not go to church!
 Mused Ferlie's mother, it was all very well for the men-folk to content
themselves with prayer by proxy, reaping where their loyal wives had sown,
but if the women were also to desert the old and tried paths to that Better
Land, Far, Far Away, the chances were that the Judgment would fall due
before anyone had reached those Eternal Bowers, and the travellers find
themselves shooed into Outer Darkness to the tune of "Depart, ye Cursed!"
And Ferlie was so responsive to her surroundings: Aunt B. could easily
have raised doubts in her mind as to the authenticity of Lazarus and Jonah,
and when once you began to pick and choose...

"No, I am afraid she is still out in the park, Cyprian. What's that?
Crystallized apricots? Oh, but you really shouldn't. I could give them to her
when she comes in.... Well, if you will ... she's sure to be near the pond.
Thank you, Peter is quite well. So odd! He says his form master asked him
where he had learnt the secret of perpetual motion. Such a silly sort of thing
to say to a child."

Cyprian had never met the exiled Peter, on the occasion of whose swift
banishment he had first recognized a kindred spirit in the Ferlie, white-
faced and dumb, presented to him in the Carmichaels' drawing-room with
the motherly rebuke, "And, Cyprian, this is the one I intended to ask you to
be godfather to, only Robin put me off, insisting that you would not know
what the term meant."

He visualized Peter, after winning his sister's confidence, as a wiry

mortal of nine summers, permanently unlaced boots and an enquiring
expression; this last suggesting a soul too perfectly in tune, if not with the
Infinite, at least with the Infinitely Annoying, as connected with problems
of Eternal Research, for the peace of mind of those in charge of him.

"Isn't it funny, when you come to think of it"—thus Mrs. Carmichael

when Cyprian had gone—"that a woman's 'No' can alter the whole course of
a man's life?"

"Not nearly so thoroughly as can a woman's 'Yes,' believe me. He is

jolly well out of that one."
 "The trouble is that you can't persuade him of it. Such an ideal situation
for him, Robin. A free house and garden..."

"Nice Society," went on Robin, a little grimly, "church bells within ear-
shot, so that one can imbibe atmospheric religion from an arm-chair, and
the golf-links closed on Sunday. But you're right: it would have suited him
—in the end. If ever I saw an Oxford don in embryo, it is Cyprian."

"He's so Nice," his wife lingered over the word. "One realizes at once
how high-principled..."

"Oh, he's all that ... and he listens to the Abbey organ regularly."

"Simple and obtuse," Linda Carmichael continued. "And she's quite

heartless. Do you know, Robin, sometimes she behaves almost as if she
were not a lady."

Mrs. Carmichael couldn't understand why Robin sniggered at this

superlative condemnation.

"She wants the Man-with-the-Stick," he briefly summed up Muriel.

Mrs. Carmichael did not pursue that idea. It was so bluntly lowering to
the dignity of Womanhood as to make her feel mildly uncomfortable. There
were wife-beaters in the slums—very sad—but she always closed fastidious
eyes to the thought that among Us, also, the thing called Human Nature
could betray itself in crude unmentionable ways.

Exploited as it might be in these days, Human Nature always seemed to

her to have an undressed sound.

Her own marriage had been a reticent affair: separate dressing-rooms

and so on.

There was something about Muriel, though her father's first cousin was
an Earl, which reminded one of the pictures kept in the house because they
were classical but which one did not look at very closely and hung in
darkish corners of the landing. Necessary to Art but hardly to Life.
 * * * * * *

While Cyprian was laying in stocks of quinine, dark glasses and thin
pyjamas, and the Carmichaels were busily embracing relations whom they
never set eyes on except at the "Ave atque Vale" occupying the two separate
ends of their four-yearly "leaves," and while Peter was interesting himself
in illicit Natural History during class hours, and Ferlie in members of her
own sex as a regiment, in class and out, Muriel was brooding over her
bones and finding them tasteless.

She came out of her bath one morning after washing her hair and,
having given the damp cloud a desultory rub with a large fluffy towel,
tossed that shield from her and paused before the long pier-glass.

"And God, who made that body for delight"—

She quoted under her breath—

"Should there have stayed and left a perfect thing,

Nor added to your loveliness a soul.
So had He spared you sharpest suffering;
Dark waves of night that o'er your spirit roll.
And sobs which shake you through the lonely night...."

Where had she read the words? Some literary magazine. Author? Hamilton
Fyffe? Was it? Or Fyfe? Remembered she had thought that clever when,
very young, she came across it. Someone had scrawled against the margin,
"I fear me Fyffe is very inexperienced. No woman without a soul has held a
man for long."

Did she want to hold any man for long? Did she ever want to "fall in
love"? What bosh it all was—this thirst of milk-blooded girls for the soul-
mate.

"It's positively terrifying to see Truth naked," remarked Muriel to her

own white reflection. Or was it not better to be free from mental corsets—
as well as the ordinary sort? She raised herself on tiptoes, clasping her
rounded arms above her head as the thought rippled into merriment across
her face: "If Cyprian were my husband and came in now, accidentally, he
would apologize and flee, and be too much of a gentleman even to mention
it again on our meeting later. He's the type of man who would never forget
that though its wife was its wife she was still a 'lady'."

Footsteps, and a knock at her door disturbed these cogitations. A known

voice greeted her through it.

"May I come in, Muriel?"

"Oh, is that you, Twinkle? Yes, so far as I'm concerned you can come in.
Better leave your gentleman-friend outside on the mat though—for his sake,
not for mine."

A thickset, handsome girl entered languidly, took in the situation at a

glance and sat down upon the unmade bed.

"You are a One!" Her voice drawled richly. "I suppose I can smoke
while you dress?"

"Puff away! I'll have one too while I finish my air-bath. It fills me with
optimism to take it in front of the glass."

Twinkle ran critical eyes over this unbashful nymph.

"You're all right," she said candidly. "A bit thin. Thinking of posing as
an artist's model?"

"Glory! It never occurred to me."

"It's a possible treatment for your complaint, my dear."

"What do you mean?" A deepening of the carnation tint on Muriel's soft

cheek.

Twinkle did not appear to notice.

"Enough eyes on your tout ensemble to satisfy even your thirst for
admiration. The joy of seeing, say, thirty individuals all occupied in